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[goazon]

everything and anything

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[battleswithin]

It felt a little anticlimactic, not being shouted at. Not that he's going to complain about it, although there's something that sticks in his gut -- would have almost preferred to be met with anger. It's what what he deserved, at the very least.

But the unexpected hits him differently. He's not going to cry, although he feels like he could. It's not only an apology accepted, but a well wish in return. He doesn't know what to say for a long time, but eventually speaks. "Maybe," he agrees softly. "I didn't find it without them. May as well look at where I started."

Stolen Moments on Ajan Kloss

[neededapilot]

Finn, Poe and Rose returned from a successful mission together, and the only thing that would have made it better is if Rey had been able to go along with them this time. Sometimes she could, sometimes she couldn't. Finn understood the importance of training so he understood why she didn't get to come along, also it wasn't a hard job.

Still, he missed her.

It felt like they rarely had time for each other and as much as he wanted to just find Rey and hang out with her, he knew the Resistance had a lot of work to do. Still, once they were foot down on the planet again, he, Poe and Rose went off to report in to General Organa. After all the fine business was over with, Finn lingered back a moment.

Leia looked up to him, a tilt of her head and a questioning look.

"Rey, is she, uh..." Finn started, unsure how to ask where he could find her.

"Training." Leia said simply, but then smiled almost secretively to Finn and nodded towards the back of the building. "She's out in the field, if you want to find her."

The look on Finn's face was pure slow growing joy as the General basically excused him to go find Rey himself. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you." he said to Leia and took no time in trailing off that way, through the back of the building, out a door, past a few other buildings and back to the 'training area' that he knew Rey had set up for herself.

There was a clearing of rocks and roots out this way, and as he wandered, making his way to the clearing, he could see rocks floating, which brought an absolute smile to his face. BB-8 actually appeared first, beeping softly at Finn in greeting, like he didn't want to be too loud and disrupt Rey while she worked.

Finn knew she'd know he was there, but he walked as silently as he could through the low underbrush, stepping on a rock and pushing it back down to the earth as he balanced on it a moment. Hands on his hips and looking over to the Jedi in training and his most favorite person in all of the universe. His heart fluttered every time he saw her.

"Hey." He called out, hands on his hips, head held high and grinning like a fool. "I think you've trained long enough for today."

[goazon]

Falling quiet she let the silence between them hold for a long moment as she mulled his words over in her mind, her eyes aimlessly flicking towards the rim of her caf mug.

"For all the nav charts," pausing her gaze returned to his face, thoughtful and shrewd as she seemed to pick and choose every word she said. "The galaxy is bigger than you could ever imagine. There's always somewhere to look." This conversation felt weightier than she would have liked it to, but somewhere inside her there was that slight nudge to keep going, like there was some string of words out there she could arrange that might quiet some part of the roar in him and she was compelled to continue to try and find it.

It was not the most comfortable feeling.

[battleswithin]

He listens to her, although he doesn't know why. It's just this side of babbling, probably the result of their combined sleep deprivation. If he were feeling surly instead of just exhausted, he might ask her how she knows, stuck on that ball of dust.

But he isn't, and he doesn't. There's still something about her that is making him listen. He doesn't know why her voice is like cool water on a fever, it simply is. None of this made sense. But he's simply too tired to fight... so he simply lets whatever this is be.

"I've seen a lot of it," he says. Sometimes through the filtered vision of his helmet, sometimes with his own eyes. Sometimes at the head of a fleet of stormtroopers, occasionally as a wide-eyed boy who couldn't believe he'd been permitted to accompany his father, his mother's warnings to be careful and behave still in his (overly large, not that it mattered) ears. Some he's seen but never been to, like she island in the vast ocean he saw in her mind. He wanted to ask her about it, but they've only just started to let that be in the past.

He instead sticks to something a little more general, maybe a little... nicer. He'd seen a lot, probing her mind, but most of it had been impressions, discarded as soon as he deemed it not of use to him. "Is this your first time off Jakku?" As if she's gone to Naboo for some sightseeing instead of had her entire life hijacked by the Resistance and First Order's conflict.

[goazon]

Despite the caf the lack of sleep is certainly winning out, making her more candid with him than she had any business being Watching him when he mentions that he's seen his fair share of the galaxy she flinches her chin up, silently repressing the urge to ask how much of that he's cut a bloody swath through. They're both holding their tongues, she can feel it in the air and see it in the pinched corners of his face.

"Yes, I'm certain I wasn't always there but I can't remember anything that came before it," which she knew he knew after the brutal way that he rifled through the contents of her mind - but they were experiencing an unspoken armistice right now and it would do no good to remind him of that. For now everyone was tired, out of place even while in the places they possibly should be - or the closest to that they might reach any time soon.

"Where was the best place you went?" Her trepidation was replaced by curiosity, and the questions she always seemed to have were limitless, this one seemed like the safest one to ask.

[battleswithin]

Truthfully, he's cut a bloody swath across a good portion of it. But there's also many places he's been as himself, the son of a scoundrel and a galactic politician, as an apprentice to his uncle. And she's asked him a question, and even if she's not actually interested and is just being bizarrely polite she deserves an answer.

It's also something of a nice way to find a good thing in his past. They were there, buried under everything. It was finding them that was the hard part. "Naboo," he answered with a slight smile. Family connection aside, there was everything a person could want there. "Beautiful forest, mountains, lake country, cities, waterfalls hundreds and hundreds of meters tall. It's beautiful there."

[goazon]

The change in his face was as interesting to Rey as his answer. She had asked sincerely, and the shift in his demeanor spoke volumes as to how much he meant what he said. It was strange and painful to consider the person who had come before Kylo Ren, who's choices had dragged him down a path that twisted in ways those who loved him were in agony over. Though, Rey was sure the experience hadn't been painless for him either.

"I think lakes are wonderful, a lot of fish to look at," her assessment is quiet, tired and more candid than she would have been if the caf were doing a better job. "When the war's over I hope to see more of everything."

[battleswithin]

When the war's over. It seemed like such a foreign concept, especially after a lifetime of one thing after another. He didn't know what that would have looked like a week ago (probably much more of the same, he thought) and what it would look like now was an enormous question mark. Looming.

"Well, stick with the Resistance and I'm sure you'll get there soon." It seemed like the Resistance was everywhere when he was trying to stomp them out, and that didn't seem likely to change soon. Of course, he hadn't had any news of any kind since walking away. That wouldn't last forever, though.

[goazon]

"Stick with the Resistance or return to Jakku - those seem to be what my choices are," Rey had thought long and hard about what shape her future might take now that she was here. It was hard to let go of the wait she had invested her life until this point into, but now, in the face of the galaxy beyond Jakku it was hard to deny that she wasn't meant to return there.

[battleswithin]

If they had an actual friendship -- one like he hasn't had in years, where their meeting had not been adversarial, galvanized as they punched their way into each other's minds -- he might have more to say. As it is, he doesn't think any input he might come up with would be welcome. Her thinking is still quite loud, but he doesn't tune into it. She wouldn't like that. "You can always take the third path. No one's going to make you do anything you don't want to," he says, a little listlessly.

[goazon]

Frowning Rey hummed thoughtfully at his words, remaining silent for a drawn out, thoughtful moment. "You should try to sleep, you're tired," Rey wasn't certain how it was that she felt it, but she did. She rose from her chair, taking a step towards the entry into the corridor but pausing.

"Or you can come watch the dawn with me," her expression was tight, gritty with hesitation even as she issued the invitation. It seemed nicer than looking beneath the rocks of her thoughts.

[battleswithin]

Sleep is about the last thing he can stomach right now, but he knows it won't be long before his body needs it, flesh and blood human that he is. Maybe shorter bursts would be better? Less room for nightmares to creep in or his former Master to slither in to his vulnerable mind.

She makes her... offer, invitation, whatever you want to call it, and for a moment he wonders if the aural hallucination stage of sleep deprivation has begun. But she's still there, as though waiting for an answer. "If you really don't mind," he said cautiously, unsure of his own motives for accepting.

Of course, maybe he had hallucinated the question and now would be met with confusion.

[goazon]

To say that she wouldn't mind wasn't entirely true, but it wasn't a lie either - she didn't know. She knew what it felt like to be unsure, Rey had gotten to know uncertainty very well in a very short amount of time since meeting Finn and ending up further away from Jakku than she ever believed she would be able to go without her family having found her. Tilting her head to the door in silent acquiesce Rey turned and headed out of the kitchen, already moving through the corridor and towards the exit, her steps swift and silent.

[battleswithin]

"All right," he said, more or less entirely to himself. He could have asked why or if she was sure again, but that probably would have risked revoking the invitation altogether. Instead, he finished the last of his caf and set the mug aside, and strode out after her.

i know this is on hold but i do what i want

[goazon]

Being one with the Force was a tall order, but Rey was doing the best that she could to get her footing all the same. There was too much at stake to faiter after all, just the heartbreak she could see at the fringes of the General’s eyes would have been enough but the fracturing of the Resistance went deeper than that, and Rey was committed to see it through to the end.

That didn’t mean that she smiled any less brightly when Finn broke her concentration. The rocks she held in the air around her descended slowly as she released her grip on them within the Force, turning to look at him.

“You’re not busy?” The gladness in her tone is unmistakable - she knows what a rarity it is. It seemed that they both always were these days, and the surprise to find him free was enough to keep her from minding the way she had dropped her stones.

Stepping lightly towards him Rey’s expression brightened the closer she came before finally coming to a halt in front of him only to reach out to clasp one of his hands, squeezing it lightly before letting it go - the tops of her ears already well on their way to crimson.

“Hello.”

[soloflight]

Something in her tone makes him hesitate for a moment. Is she offended that he's a Solo? It kind of sounded like it... but it's not like he can actually confirm that just from a disembodied voice coming out of a blue rock, so he decides to press on, and the way to do so is to answer her questions. "Yeah, I am. I'm the eldest son of Han Solo and Leia Organa." And, well, the only son left now. "I have a twin sister, Jaina, and we had a younger brother, Anakin."

It's her next statement that makes him frown. "By train, do you mean you're speaking to him through a rock too? Because he's here with me. Well, not right now, but I mean we came to this planet together."

[goazon]

Everything he has to say about who he is and where he came from is mind-boggling to Rey. Eldest son? Sister? Every detail is filed away in her already puzzled mind to turn over at a later time, and - should the voice in the rock persist, perhaps ask him about when things were less of a complete puzzlement. His question about Luke however - that couldn't wait a moment longer, and a response tumbled out of her before Rey had had time to think too long about it.

"No?" She sounded uncertain, casting a glance over the other rocks in the pile where she had found the blue one now resting on the palm of her hand. "Yours is the only talking rock I've ever found." Rey tried to picture him on the other side of things, as confused as she was and an actual person - not a manifestation of the Force or of a planet's consciousness.